Coming Home
by Fixomnia Scribble
Summary: Pre-Season 8x01 "Cutting Losses". The Reagans have known more than their share of tragedy. That doesn't make it any easier for the compulsive family fixer. It just ingrains his coping mechanisms that much deeper. But this time is different: this time there's Eddie.


Coming Home

* * *

May 29th, 2017: 1:23 am  
Eddie's place

She went to bed over an hour ago, though she wasn't tired then and she isn't tired now. "Go to bed" was just the next item on her list. Plus, she reasons, if Jamie doesn't call tonight, he might still call any time the next day, and she wants to be sure she's alert and ready to move on whatever he might need.

Unlike the Reagans of majority age, she'd been strictly teetotal this evening, because she might be needed to drive someone or jump back on duty at any time. Or just to listen. Jamie had sat in her car in mute silence as she took him home, except for his quiet thanks and affirmative murmur when she made him promise to call if he needed her.

Still, she'd listened hard, and she knows she heard a great deal.

At home alone, she'd pieced a small late dinner together from leftovers and watched the news. There was exactly one minute and four seconds dedicated to the story, with a looped dramatic ten-second clip of smoke and a bent rotor emerging from the water, taken from some observer's cellphone. She could just watch it if she didn't tell herself that Linda was in there, in the dome of the chopper that floated on the surface of the water. Just a sad story of a minor air tragedy.

The news anchor capitalized on the irony that the missing body was that of a cancer patient being airlifted to Johns Hopkins for a radical new clinical cancer trial that might have saved her life.

 _"Confirmed deceased are the pilot, Hank Debruijn, 52, of Baltimore, Maryland, and the hospital nurse who was escorting the patient: Linda Reagan, 44, of Staten Island, New York. Mark, now over to you for the story on today's stocks."_

At 11:07 p.m., a text. Maria Baez, who was probably also watching the news, checking in:

 _\- What a day. Danny says he'll live till morning. Not exactly ha-ha funny. How U? I'm up. Call if u need_

 _\- Ok for now, thanks. Took J home but keeping phone on. We're on leave time. You doing ok?_

 _\- Been better, been worse. We've all lost people. D and I are off too. Check in w/u tmrw once I talk to D_

 _\- You were great today, bella._

 _\- U too, chica. Get some sleep_

She'd added a dozen new contacts into her phone: Detective Baker's call-out list and protocol of precedence in case of future Reagan family emergencies. Baker had e-mailed it to her personally, which meant that either Baker, Frank Reagan or both of them had decided she should be brought into the inner circle. And now she had her own place on the family call-out list, which meant that she'd been adopted. That was by far more reassuring and less problematic than she and Jamie simply being assumed to be somehow important to each other. If anything happened to either one of them, from now on, anywhere where in the world – the other would know as immediately as could be arranged.

She'd made sure there were snacks handy and bottles of his favourite iced tea in the fridge, and fresh towels in the bathroom, as if he was there with her. She'd cleaned up her dinner things, showered off and gotten changed, and sat up in bed for a while with a book that might have been blank. She eventually turned off the light sometime after midnight.

At 1:23 am, she hears footsteps in the stairwell out in the corridor, and then the small scrape of a key. She rolls over. Familiar footsteps in her apartment. Then his shape slumping in the darkened doorway of her room.

"Hey," she whispers. She flicks a corner of the quilt over. Too exhausted even to nod, he undresses methodically down to his shorts and t-shirt and leaves a neat roll of his clothes on the chair against the wall, boots underneath. Sits on the edge of the bed and peers over at her as if it's just dawned on him that he's here and maybe he should go.

 _It's okay_ , she thinks at him. _Just rest._

She reaches up and presses his shoulder, and he obediently lies down and pulls up the quilt. He moves around for a minute as if his muscles ache too much to lie still and he can't settle. She rolls him over so that his back is to her, and she wraps her arm around his waist and winds her leg between his for the sole purpose of pinning him down. Her hand slides up along his arm, and she holds tight to a hand she finds up near his shoulder. She feels him inhale a shuddering breath. He can't cry, not yet.

She doesn't offer words of comfort or rub his back or anything. She's always been more of a soldier than a care-taker. That's Jamie's forte. But she's exactly what he needs right now, because he is trying to absorb and contain the explosive force of everyone's shock including his own, and it has to detonate sometime. She'll stand guard between him and whatever nightmares may come tonight.

And the next night, as it turns out.

And the next.

Even though he's gone by the time she wakes up, as if he needs to keep up the illusion even from himself.

And it's okay.

* * *

~ Eighteen hours earlier ~

May 28th, 2017: 5:32 am  
Reagan House

Linda sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed Danny's back. "I'm off to work," she murmured, and he rolled over.

"Hey," he greeted her. "You good?"

They spoke in hushed voices in the dark, so as not to wake the boys, who now shared Joe's old room next door, or Frank and Henry down the hall. Well accustomed to these early rollouts, she'd left her scrubs and kit laid out on the dresser the night before, and hadn't bothered with the light.

"I'm good. I'll be back by the time the boys are home from school. I'll get a nap after dinner, so you call me when you're done work, and I'll come get you."

"Might be late," he warned her. "We're moving on the girl-trafficking ring we been watching."

"I know. Be safe. Those are lucky girls with you watching out for them."

"You're one a million."

"I know that, too." She kissed him on the forehead. "Go back to sleep. You got another couple hours if you want. Don't let Sean skip breakfast. He gets cranky by recess."

"Love you, babe."

"Love you more."

She gathered her kit and took a last look back at her husband as she left. Nobody would ever believe he woke up so sweet in the mornings. She was the night-owl, and he was the early-bird, and yet here they were, working the very opposite shifts. Sometimes that's what life dealt you. They'd had more than enough to deal with this summer, but at least this schedule swap meant they'd have a shared day off tomorrow.

She tiptoed down the hall and downstairs, and made her way out the kitchen door, grabbing the bagel and cheese she'd left in the fridge. She'd eat on the drive in. The sun was just peering down the leafy street, all green and gold and deserted at this hour. She hopped in the car, took a deep inhale and shook the sleepiness out of herself as she turned the ignition and eased down the driveway.

* * *

May 28th 2017: 6:20 a.m.  
St. Victor's Hospital

"Linda. A word?" Dr. Doran waved her over, and Linda fell in in beside her and matched her stride down the hospital corridor. "You're trained to escort a patient by air?" Doran asked.

"I am. We shipping someone out today?"

"Mrs. DaSilva. She's been selected for the onco-immunotherapy clinical trial at Kimmel. You good to accompany her? Vital One should be here by seven o'clock. Mrs. DaSilva will need to be prepped for travel and leave from the helipad at seven-thirty. You'll release her to staff at Johns Hopkins and be back by nine, nine-thirty, all going well."

"Sure, I'll go with her. That's great news! Her panels must have come back a near perfect match to the specs."

"Well, let's hope. If the COX-2 inhibitor doesn't work for her…"

"Keep hoping." Linda told her firmly. "We keep hoping and we send her to the very best research centers we have. Let me just go hand off my patients to Katie."

Doran gave her a contact-free medical fist bump. Linda grinned and went to prep Olivia DaSilva for the helicopter ride of her life.

* * *

May 28th, 2017: 7:50 am  
Raritan Bay, New York

"Nurse, we're dropping three hundred feet to accommodate a military craft coming near the flight path. Your patient comfortable?"

"Her patient is just fine," Olivia replied in a whisper, muffled by her nasal canula. "What a morning to fly."

"Isn't it, though?" Linda agreed. "We're fine back here, Captain."

The helicopter slowed and began to drop. Linda felt a drop in the pit of her stomach, as she expected. The chopper banked a little and then righted, and the pilot relayed back: "We're just going to sit at this level and wait for the carrier to leave the - "

There was a shudder that felt oddly like an earthquake for a moment.

"What?" asked Olivia. "What's going on?"

"I'm not sure," said Linda. "Just breathe slow and deep. Slow and deep, okay?"

The shudder came again. Linda held onto Olivia's stretcher with one hand and the clutch bar with the other.

"Captain? Is this some turbulence? Wake from the military carrier?"

"No." The pilot was fighting with the controls. Linda looked up through the dome, and thought that the rotor blades looked more separated than they usually did at full speed. Slowing down? Interference?

Stall.

They were stalling out over the water of Raritan Bay, well beyond the deep dropoff and into the shipping lanes. Not six miles from Staten Island, so close she could probably pick out the burned site of her and Danny's house, if they'd been pointed in the right direction.

The pilot was on his radio now, tersely informing the control operator that he was in trouble with three souls on board.

 _But it was all going to be fine_ , Linda said to herself. Pilots trained for this sort of thing. She'd been in a helicopter herself that stalled out and revived. This was an experienced pilot and a newer craft. And they seemed so close to shore. If they had to make a water landing, they'd get towed to shore pretty quickly.

 _It would all be fine_ , Linda told herself.

"Nurse Linda? Is that smoke?"

"Where?" Linda asked vaguely, looking up.

"Down there."

Linda looked down and she knew. She saw the little patch of land upon the earth where she'd been born and grew up and raised her children. It struck her as right, somehow, that her body was returning there.

In that moment she sent out all the love her spirit could contain to Danny, her boys, to Frank and Henry and everyone else. She took Olivia's hand in hers, and smiled and said, "Yes, it's a little smoke."

The flames started in the tail rotor, to which the pilot had desperately thrown all the power from the stalled blades overhead. The tail of the chopper shrieked and wrenched asunder, a plume of silvery-black smoke showing its path down to the water.

They weren't so far from the surface. There was still time. If the cabin maintained integrity, they'd have the inflatable raft out in minutes.

But she knew.

The crack in the cabin started at the door, and as the blades whined fruitlessly, the chopper tilted on its side, bereft of its tail. Linda grabbed for Olivia and held her, strapped in her stretcher as she was. She didn't pray. There wasn't anything to pray for but painlessness. She'd said goodbye. But perhaps she could ease the way for Olivia.

Olivia's eyes flew wide and she tried to suck in a breath, and then Linda remembered the oxygen canula that had been wrenched from Olivia's face.

The flames from the electric wiring in the tail were sucked inside the cabin as the wind whistled louder and louder and gravity lost all meaning.

Linda didn't feel her fingernails rip as she tore the small oxygen canister from its stand and threw it out of the break in the ruptured cabin. She covered Olivia's eyes with her arm, and whispered in her ear, _Hail Mary, full of grace_ …

* * *

May 28th, 2017: 9:02 am  
NYPD 54th Precinct

"Carver."

"Is this Lieutenant Carver at the five-four?"

"Sure is. Who's this?"

"Ma'am, this is Sergeant Reilly, at the one-two-two, Staten Island. You watching the news?"

"Not at the moment. What you got going on over there?"

There was a dry, husky cough, almost a sob, and Carver held the phone away in distaste. "Ma'am," said Reilly, with difficulty, "We are currently waiting for NTSB to take over a marine recovery mission in Raritan Bay. FDNY Marine Operations is on scene with a downed chopper just off Annadale. It's a medivac craft."

"Jesus. Okay. And?"

"Do you have a Detective Daniel Reagan working there? The Commissioner's son?"

"Oh, my sweet Lord." Carver covered her mouth. "It's not the – "

"No, Ma'am. It's Linda Reagan. The nurse on the medivac flight."

"Danny's Linda." Carver said, her heart sinking. "You said recovery, Sergeant? Not rescue."

"Yes. I am so sorry to have to make this call. Mrs. Reagan had her husband's courtesy card in her wallet and a handwritten next-of-kin identification."

Carver looked out her office window. Baez was just sitting down and powering up her computer, which meant that it was Reagan's turn to get their coffee from the stand outside. He'd be there momentarily.

"Give me everything you have, Sergeant. I'll make the notification myself."

"We don't have much right now. FDNY has located two deceased in the wreckage, Mrs. Reagan and the pilot, both matching the identification they had on them. We can't do more until Transpo arrives, and the dive team."

"I'll have Detective Reagan and the Commissioner driven out to you. Who's your point on this?"

"I'm taking this one myself. It's the least I can do. I'll meet with Commissioner and Detective Reagan and their families, and stay with them until we've done everything we possibly can for today."

Reagan loped into the bullpen with two coffees and a smirk.

"I'll be in touch shortly, Sergeant. Gotta go."

"God bless, Ma'am."

"God bless us all," she sighed. She hung up and stared at Reagan for a moment. _This_ , she thought, _might be the thing that trips his switch for good_.

She got up and shook her head. Reagan looked up at that moment and saw her staring at him. He probably thought he was in trouble again, because he raised his coffee like he was toasting her, and grinned like a little kid.

 _Aw, shit, Reagan, enough with the cute. Not today._

She waved him in. He got serious, and chucked Baez on the shoulder as he walked towards her office. Baez got up, too, and followed.

"Just you," she told him, as she opened the door. Baez threw Reagan a very familiar look that clearly asked what he'd gotten into this time. Which gave Carver a moment to consider policy, and then to decide that policy could go screw itself this once. Baez would find out everything in minutes anyway, and Reagan would need all the support he could get.

"Actually, both of you, come in here, please."

" 'Sup, Boss?"

"Please, Danny, sit down."

Reagan eyeballed her. "Oo-kay," he said, and sat.

"Danny. I just had the one-two-two on the phone."

"Aw, did someone catch me dropping my kids in the no-stopping zone at school? I'm sorry."

"Danny. Shut up." said Baez.

Danny shut up.

"It's about Linda," Carver said, "Danny, Linda was on a medivac flight this morning. There was some sort of accident. We're just getting the information now. NTSB isn't even there yet."

"What you talking about? What accident? She's at work, she had an early shift."

"Danny, listen to me. A medivac chopper went down near Staten Island. The FDNY is on scene right now, and they've matched Linda and the pilot of the medivac to their IDs. I am so sorry. _They've identified her_ , Danny. She's passed away. We don't know yet what happened. My next call is the Commissioner. I'm gonna have his detail pick you up here, and the Sergeant - "

"What, you…no, you're not, this is crazy, this is – I'm gonna call her right now, okay? She's at the hospital, she had a - "

"Danny!" Baez cut in. "Are you here with us? Danny, _it's Linda_."

"No, no, it's…it's not. Can't be."

He looked suddenly shrunken in on himself and thirty years older.

"You just sit here a minute," Carver told him, "I'm getting you a ride out there. You ain't driving. I'm gonna get – " she moved to the door, opened it, and called for someone to bring her a couple bottles of water.

"Baez?" Danny asked. "What the hell is going on?"

Baez crouched in front of him and took his hands, tears beginning to leak out. "Danny, I am so, so sorry. This isn't an episode. It's not a flashback. I wish it was."

"No. No." he shook his head. "I just saw her this morning."

He dropped his head down towards Baez and she wrapped her arms around him as best she could.

* * *

May 28th 2017: 9:44 am  
NYPD 12th Precinct

"Reagan. Janko. You kids c'mere, now."

Jamie looked up and met Eddie's raised eyebrow across their desks. Of all the things they'd heard out of Renzulli's mouth, those soft words ranked high among the strangest.

They got up and stood inside Renzulli's door, expecting to be handed a particularly rough kid case or something. They didn't expect to see Renzulli furiously cleaning his glasses and swallowing hard.

"Uh, boss, is there – "

"Jamie, I just got a call."

Jamie felt the world begin to skid away from him, because this was how all his worst nightmares began. Eddie took one look at him and shoved him down into one of the old leather chairs in front of Renzulli's overloaded desk, and sat in the other herself.

"Who?" Jamie asked. "Who is it?"

"It's Linda, Danny's Linda," Renzulli told him. "I just got a call from the Lieutenant at the five-four. I'm real sorry, Jamie. Danny and your father are heading to Staten Island to the scene right now. I don't know exactly, there was some sort of helicopter accident on the water. Three on board, no survivors. A medical flight."

None of this was making sense, thought Jamie. "Well," he said. "She's a senior ER nurse, so I guess she might get called out to a scene, but it's seems odd. Someone needs to pick up her kids, is that it? If everyone's busy out there?"

Renzulli gaped at him, and closed his mouth. "Ah…kid," he said, "I don't think you're getting me. I'm so sorry. Linda was escorting a patient. She didn't make it through. They've identified her body. It's a developing situation, we're just getting the facts. Danny and the Commissioner are en route right now. You two, you want a driver to get you out there too? I can arrange that. Or – "

"I think I'd better go to my dad's house," Jamie heard himself say calmly, "That's where everyone will end up. They always do."

There was a brief silence. Eddie stood up and tapped on his arm. "If that's where you need to be, I'll drive you," she said huskily. "Go get changed. Meet me back here. Tony, you know we're not partnered up right now – "

Renzulli shook his head sadly at the pair of them. "Patimkin and Walsh can ride together as long as you two need. Whatever we can do for you and your family, we'll do it."

Jamie got to his feet and felt his stomach shrivel in dread at the thought of his family once again gathered for another vigil, waiting in silence punctuated by phone calls for information to come in. Only this time, they wouldn't be praying for the survival of a brother, or a mother. There was nothing to pray for this time except for the repose of Linda's fierce, bright soul.

Eddie pushed him towards the locker rooms with a hand on his back. "Five minutes," she said crisply. He nodded. A concrete order was what he needed just then. As he turned, he heard Eddie ask Renzulli, "Who's calling Erin, do you know? What about picking up Danny's boys from school? Should we do that?"

"Detective Baker, the Commissioner's right-hand at 1PP, she's on it. She's had a call sheet for Reagan family emergencies in her SOP manual since day one. I get cc'ed on updates myself, since Jamie started here. This is not a new thing. And Janko – there's gonna be press all over this. Steer him away from the worst, will you?"

"Ten-four, boss."

The worst, Jamie thought, as he started to pull off his uniform, would not be today or even this week. The worst would be watching Danny have to decide, every single day, whether to subject himself to life without his stabilizing counterweight, and how to go about doing it. The worst would be watching Sean and Jack go through the same excoriating process of grief and guilt and eventual difficult regrowing, under the magnifying glass of public pity and curiosity that he, Joe, Erin and Danny had gone through after their mother died.

It was kind of Renzulli to offer to send them out to the scene, he thought. Getting all the information and being reassured of everyone's competence on the job were usually important parts of getting closure. But right now, they had the only piece of information they needed, and being together was more important than understanding how it happened. If Danny was going to blow a gasket, or if Erin was going to try to launch a nuclear court case against someone, then someone was going to have to keep an eye on the boys.

That he could do. He set his shoulders back in place took a breath.

He was walking back to Eddie, waiting in her civvies with car keys in hand, when it hit him how irregular it was for Renzulli to put them back together for the sole purpose of signing them off on leave.

For that, at least, he was deeply grateful.

* * *

July and August 2017

She's felt a sort of pressure, like a rainstorm that needs to break, for a while now. It doesn't originate with her, and she can ignore it when she chooses, but she does not choose. Because Jamie – backchatty, hilarious Uncle Jamie, beloved of nephews and their Math teachers, the Eagle Scout half of Unit 12D, is not okay.

They're stopped at a red light in Midtown, and he's regaling her with a story from last Sunday's dinner, in which Frank was thoroughly roasted by his three remaining children over some comment he made about some mystery woman. Jamie thinks Frank has a little crush, but he wishes the old man good luck. It's been a while.

Eddie chews at a thumbnail and thinks that silent, blank-wall Jamie would be at least more honest than this. She's frustrated at him, but also at herself, because she does not know how to reach him when he's this far in his head, and she's afraid she's going to lose him if she goes about it wrongly. She may lose him if she doesn't try at all.

"What's up with you?" he asks, "Something you ate? Wait, that doesn't narrow things down much."

"Jamie," she begins. He notes the direct appeal in her eyes, and his gaze slides away from her as the light turns green.

"No, really, you feeling okay? What's with the face?"

"I'm really worried about you," she tells him, point-blank.

She's called his bluff. He buries a moment of reaction in pretending to check his mirrors. "Me. I'm fine. Why?"

"I just think you've taken on a lot lately," she said, trying to use his own method of constructing a calm and reasoned build-up to a point, "You've been so great with the boys, and spending more time with Danny and Erin. But who's got your back? I know you're barely eating. You're not running in the mornings. You don't come out with us after tour's over anymore."

"You having doubts about me again already? I can't handle a bit of family stress? Janko, my family's been through this more than once, and we'll go through it again. If I need to spend time with Jack and Sean, so Danny can get his head together, that's what I'm gonna do. My brother has PTSD, and it's pretty acute right now, you know? He can't even parent himself right now. Erin and I are just trying to pick up some slack, 'cause we know what it's like. So forgive me if I'm not going out getting hammered with you after shift every night – "

"No, no, I'm pretty happy about that part – " she looks over at him and catches a brief flash of utter rejection, quickly hidden. "NO, Jamie, I mean I'm glad you're not drinking much right now. I'd spend every moment with you if I could."

"Yeah, I know, you wanna keep an eye on me," he says, not looking at her. "Well, thanks, but I don't need a babysitter."

"Oh, I am nobody's babysitter." She wags an airy finger.

"Well, then…"

The car is quiet. And yet she feels a quarter-inch closer than she was before.

"You know who's got my back?" he asks, conversationally. He chucks her on the shoulder. "You do. I appreciate it. Really. But I'm fine, and I'm gonna keep being fine. I'm sorry if I'm a little off-kilter lately. Lot to process."

He did not, she notes, ask her to back off or stop trying.

 _I know that you know that I know that you know_ , she thinks, the old schoolyard chant, _that you keep on trying to be everything for every person in your family, and that I'm trying to be the one person who doesn't need you to fix things for them, and you don't know how to deal with not-fixing people anymore._

 _And I know that you're the one the boys cry on even though they're older teenage boys, because you're Uncle Jamie who gets it. And I know that Erin dumps on you because she's hardly got any friends who she can confide in without worrying some story will break about her ability to prosecute crimes impartially. And I know that you stay up nights worrying that Danny's going to decide he can't face another morning and lives in a house full of guns and whiskey._

 _And you're still dropping in to sleep in my bed some nights, like a bird falling out of the sky, until you can get up and start flying again._

 _And I know that you miss your other big sister, who's been part of your life since you were just a little kid._

 _And you're not saying a single word about any of it._

Even when he slinks apologetically into her room, hours later, and slips under the covers with such a familiar movement that she barely wakes up, except to reach back and wrap his arm around her where it belongs.

He's gone by morning, as always.

* * *

September 29, 2017: 10:45 pm  
The Hush Nightclub, 23rd St W, NYC

She watched Jamie put on his persona as they entered the club. His shoulders and chest seemed to puff up like he'd maybe been playing a bit with steroids at the gym. His eyes began to dart around like he trusted nobody. His hand reached back for hers without looking, as if he expected her to take it and follow him without asking questions.

Kinda hot body language, in dommy sort of way, she admitted. Sometimes she really loved her job.

Eddie, in her cute little strappy, frilly flowered top and tight jeans, teetering on wedge-heeled sandals, tripped along after him, an inane smile on her face. What a fun party!

The play unrolled perfectly. Even the kid they flipped for an informant was cool and easy, and if their mark was pretty security-conscious for a small-time club dealer, he clearly wasn't packing weapons himself. He had hired muscle for that, but wasn't expecting any real trouble in a club of bored rich kids.

"Oh, my God! Eddie? Oh, man! Long time."

They turned around. _Oh, fuck_ , she thought. Phil Konstantin, the DKE poster boy of her grad year. Never got near enough to put a finger on her, but not from lack of trying. Her mind spun as she tried to think whether he might have any idea that she wasn't a millionaire's baby anymore, but an NYPD cop.

"Ah – I'm busy right now," she told him, reaching back for her old party-girl-avoiding-trouble voice.

"Aw, I haven't seen you since college. You look great," Konstantin went on. Either he was too drunk to notice she was standing hand in hand with a bulked-up angry dude, or he was arrogant enough that he didn't care. Both were possible.

"Hey, who is this guy?" Jamie demanded, as if she owed him an explanation. She giggled and fluttered an apologetic glance at Ice, as if she just couldn't help it if old flames kept popping up.

"Listen, I'd love to catch up, maybe we could go have a drink together," Konstantin persisted.

Jamie hand tightened fractionally on hers, and she saw the muscle under his eye twitch. Now that was interesting. That wasn't play-acting. That was a tell. "Why don't you take a hike?" Jamie spat at him.

"Yeah, this is really not a good time," she added, willing him to take the hint.

" _Never_ is a good time, all right?" Jamie warned him. He turned back to Ice and shrugged his shoulders, as if dusting off his hands of the whole business. He'd deal with the nosy dude later if he had to. Meanwhile, drugs to score and a girlfriend to show who was boss. "We doin 'business here, or what?"

* * *

September 30, 2017: 12:30 am  
Eddie's place

He doesn't seem to come down after the operation is over. He's bouncing on the balls of his feet and his arms fly around more impatiently than usual as they check in with Robert and the team, promising to come in tomorrow to debrief officially. It's a good sting, a satisfying end to one small underworld career. The kid they flipped is a hero in his girlfriend's eyes, and 12D has yet another nice write-up on their jackets.

And yet he doesn't want to go for drinks and he's not hungry. "Let's just go to your place," he says flatly. She eyes him. It's fine with her. Maybe he's still in persona and needs a safe place to regroup. It's not uncommon. She's still in her costume herself, technically speaking. It's a hot night after all, and she's comfy.

Maybe he's finally referring in words to the fact that he still sneaks into her apartment every week or so, and crawls into bed with her. She admits she likes it a lot, even if it began out of acute pain. He's welcome in her space. And he's certainly not going to find anyone else there.

But he doesn't talk on the way there, and he grips her hand hard as they walk up the stairs to her apartment, like they're still back there in the club. He even unlocks her apartment with his own key, and scans the place like he's clearing it before pulling her inside.

"Jam – "

His mouth is on hers, hard, ungentle, his body unbalancing hers so she ends up hanging onto him as she lands against the wall. _Jesus, Jamie_. His tongue finds hers like he owns it. She's panting from shock and dizzying hunger. His strong hands grab at her waist, and slide lower, to clutch her hips. He kisses her deeper, darker. She meets him right there and he growls low down.

Her hands come up to push at his chest, only because she needs to breathe. It just sets him off, though, and he grabs her hands and pins them to the wall over her shoulders. His mouth closes in on her throat, and _holy shit_ , _Scout_ , that's his teeth and it's so good she curses out loud and her hips rock against him. He bites down hard on the column of her neck and she hisses her pleasure. The thin strap of her top is in his way. He lets her hands go and nudges the strap impatiently with his mouth, and her top slides right down over her bare shoulder. Is he –

Yes.

" _Fuck_ , Jamie," she gasps, as his knees drop and his hot mouth finds a hard, peaked nipple. Those teeth. _Holy fuck_.

"Say it," he demands, sending spasms of hunger through her guts, "Say the words. Say it."

"I'm yours," she tells him. Her voice has a whimper in it, from years of choked-down love, from wanting to share his pain and take some from him, and from sheer pulsing desire, at this point.

"Say it," he says again, softer. Not begging. Desperately wanting to be sure he heard her right.

"I'm yours," she repeats. His forehead drops against her breast, and she lifts her hand to slide her fingers through his hair. "I'm yours, Jamie. You know I've always been yours."

He breathes out a sob. When he pulls back and stand up to look her in the eyes, his are wet and apologetic, but she can see straight deep down into them for the first time in months.

"Don't ever leave me," he murmurs. Wrapped so tightly in each other, it's absurd to think of such a thing, but tomorrow will come, and with it a whole world of dangers and unknown events.

Jamie, her Jamie, is back. Deeply buried existential terrors and all.

She places her hands on his face to make sure he's catching every word, "I will never leave you. Not of my doing."

She reaches up and kisses him. He seems to think he has no right to kiss her back. She soon sets him straight on that score. It's not long before the strappy top ends up on the floor and both of his shirts land in a tangle on an end table.

This time, she doesn't bother to flip back the quilt. She's a little occupied, and he's not there to get some sleep.


End file.
